037: Did a Cat Get In?
Tang Yu said that, then headed down from the walkway toward the beach.
He was clearly delighted, wanting to go see the spectacle. “I’ve never seen a capybara this close before!”
The three of them walked onto the sand. Tang Yu kept a safe distance, lowering his gaze to look carefully.
Mm, it really was a capybara.
How strange. There was a capybara here of all places. Because this spot was far from the main path, there wasn’t anyone else around, just the three of them wandering over.
Nobody else saw the capybara.
Tang Yu looked around, at the walkway, at the beach, and felt like he’d stepped into some kind of dreamlike absurdity.
Why would there be a capybara here? This was still Jiangyuan, right? Nobody was dreaming, right??
Tang Yu turned back, saw Sang Zhao completely frozen, and completely understood what Sang Zhao was feeling.
He comforted him with the tone of an older brother: “Don’t be scared, these guys don’t bite.”
People say they’re super Buddhist little animals, good with all kinds of creatures, mild temperament, low aggression, not dangerous at all.
Tang Yu saw that the capybara’s mood was calm. Thinking back to what he knew about their temperament, his interest got the better of him, and he went closer. After testing things a few times, he couldn’t resist and reached out to touch the capybara’s head.
The fur felt short, stiff, like pig bristles. He stroked it twice, then used the back of his hand to nudge its ears. The ears gave two soft little flutters.
Tang Yu had always been unlucky with small animals, so seeing one that didn’t dislike him made him melt on the spot.
“See? Very cute,” he said as he petted it.
Sang Zhao looked timid on the surface, just standing there holding the kid behind him, both of them shrinking back like timid little critters.
Compared to that, Tang Yu looked downright heroic.
Sang Zhao only acted scared. His whole body was tense. If the capybara showed even a hint of attacking, he was ready to legally and justifiably beat it up on the spot.
But the capybara was calm, squeaked twice, didn’t look aggressive at all, and even seemed oddly human-like.
It didn’t run. Clearly it knew that running would be hard to explain, so it just let Tang Yu go through the motions of petting it.
As expected, Tang Yu pulled out his phone and called the police, reporting that there was a wild capybara on the beach.
Sang Zhao watched quietly. The capybara still didn’t run, just stood there, stable as a mountain. Its emotional stability was terrifying.
Surely this guy was way too familiar with this whole process. The Samoyed kid had to work so hard to conceal his dog form, yet this capybara wasn’t the least bit nervous about being caught?
After ten minutes, just when Tang Yu was getting really into petting it, a police car drifted to a stop nearby. Two officers came running.
One walked over and explained that this was a capybara that escaped from a nearby zoo. They’d be taking it back shortly.
Sang Zhao looked them over. While one officer spoke with Tang Yu, the other stood idle. Sang Zhao sidled over and abruptly asked:
“Director Li is gonna scold him, right?”
The officer froze for a second. She turned her head slowly like she’d heard nothing. “What?”
Ah. Got it.
Sang Zhao gave her a meaningful look. The police uniform wasn’t fake, but she clearly wasn’t a regular police officer.
Not from the local station, huh? More like a transferred case, handed over from the police to the Yao Bureau.
She wouldn’t say it, but Sang Zhao had his ways.
“It’s fine, just tell me. If you don’t, I’ll pop out my tail and show every human on the beach.” Sang Zhao threatened seriously.
Yao Bureau staffer: …??
Help. What kind of “hurt the enemy 1000, hurt yourself 1500” kind of threat was this?!
The young officer clearly recognized him, at least had seen his photo before. Seeing his troublemaking streak, she didn’t argue and whispered back:
“This case was transferred to the Yao Bureau. We just came for field duty. It’s nothing serious.”
That was exactly what Sang Zhao wanted, an official stance.
He immediately perked up. “Ohhh? So exposing your true form in front of humans isn’t a big deal?”
Instantly, danger alarms went off in the staffer’s head. She quickly stopped him:
“Nope! If a tiger or lion gets seen in its true form, that’s a huge problem. Even for smaller creatures, absolutely no one can let humans link their beast form with their human identity.”
She said, “If you really run across the beach with your tail out, you won’t just be trending, you’ll be in jail.”
Sang Zhao deflated. “……I know.”
Being a yaoguai pretending to be human meant walking on eggshells. Honestly, it was worse than being a cat. But still… if he just stayed under the radar, on the knife-edge…
Maybe it was doable.
Tang Yu finished explaining the situation and came back, seeing Sang Zhao and the kid standing there listlessly.
He nudged Sang Zhao. “You wanna go pet it? Not every day you see a capybara up close.”
Pet what? Pet a middle-aged man, pet someone’s dad?
No thanks.
But Xia Moye tugged his hand, eyes bright with curiosity.
So Sang Zhao let go of his hand, and Xia Moye pounced forward with a howl and began harassing— I mean, confidently petting… the capybara from head to tail.
He lifted the capybara’s chin and joked loudly to Sang Zhao:
“Look! A dog is catching a mouse!”
That got Sang Zhao good, he burst out laughing.
“Hahahahaha, a dog catching a mouse… Yeah! A giant mouse… hahaha sorry.” He even apologized to the capybara afterward.
Tang Yu grew stern. “Xiao Ye! Stop calling yourself a dog! Your uncle’s been teaching you nonsense!”
Xia Moye stuck out his tongue, made a goofy face, and kept petting the capybara like his life depended on it.
After a bit more playing, when they were about to leave, Sang Zhao turned his head and saw Tata’s mom walking over.
A cool, handsome, sharply dressed career woman. Her stride steady and confident, every step showcasing natural dominance.
Wow. Looked like she came to bail out her husband and pick up their kid.
The moment Sang Zhao thought that, he realized something wasn’t right.
Hold on… the kid was a sea otter, the dad was a capybara… the mom couldn’t possibly be human either, right?
It didn’t make sense. If the kid was a sea otter and the dad wasn’t, then logically… the mom must be the sea otter?
Tata’s mom approached, checked her husband… er, capybara… saw him getting manhandled by a kid, and didn’t care at all.
Then she glanced at the sea. She stared for a bit before looking away.
She was actually just here to pick up her husband and son, but she didn’t rush and started chatting.
And what did she love to talk about?
Construction sites. Dam projects. All. The. Time.
Tang Yu had free time, so he asked about recent projects, current progress in the field.
Tata’s mom assumed he was looking to hire her, so she became extremely enthusiastic.
She spoke crisply and loudly: “Our company’s reputation is the best. Fast and high-quality construction. And all hand-crafted! The smaller the project, the finer the work, no cutting corners. We do this out of love!”
“Honestly, if you contract us, you can rest a hundred and eighty-six hearts! In all of Jiangyuan, there’s nobody who builds dams better than our riv—our combined team!’’
Sang Zhao couldn’t listen anymore.
Sis… one more word and you’re going to expose yourself. The officer next to her already had a hand on her gun. Please get a grip!
Why are you “riv—” this and “dam” that? And then… finally… Sang Zhao understood the family composition.
The kid was a sea otter.
The dad was a capybara.
The mom… was a beaver.
Sang Zhao wanted to ask how this was physically possible. Was the child actually biologically theirs? What kind of biology produced this family? If a beaver and a capybara could produce a sea otter, then why couldn’t a fish and a bicycle produce a rocket launcher?
But hey! They looked happy.
A beaver forewoman mom.
A calm capybara dad.
A gorgeous kid.
Everyone skipping work on a weekday to vacation together.
Totally mismatched, but very happy.
Tang Yu became more and more interested as she talked.
Sang Zhao, terrified she’d slip one more “riv—” and ruin everything, tugged desperately on Tang Yu’s arm, pulling and shaking him nonstop.
“Let’s go, let’s go, gege, let’s go, the kid’s sleepy, let’s go sleep!”
He even whined a little. How could Tang Yu not give him attention??
Tang Yu patted his arm, didn’t look back, but comforted him, “Just a moment, okay? Let me ask a little more about the project.”
Sang Zhao: You won’t get anything useful since she’s a beaver! A beaver! Wake up, you beaver!
He grabbed Tang Yu’s clothes, chanting, “Gege gege gege gege!”
Because it was Sang Zhao, Tang Yu didn’t shake him off. Being pulled and tugged honestly made him soft-hearted, though he still talked business seriously while absently rubbing Sang Zhao’s arm.
Sang Zhao was not soothed.
He didn’t want Tang Yu speaking another word to the beaver.
The beaver looked at him, her eyes turning as if she figured something out. She slapped her forehead and told Sang Zhao:
“You can hire me too! I’ll give you a discount!”
Sang Zhao waved frantically. “No no no, I don’t have any dams that need building!”
“Doesn’t have to be dams! Renovation too! We do electrical, plaster, carpentry, full-home customization, hardware, home cleaning… Here, add me on WeChat! If you need anything, call me!”
Sang Zhao woodenly added her along with Tang Yu.
Well… this was probably what people meant by “networking.”
He thought, if he ever got rich and left his loft apartment to get his own place, he could hire the beaver to renovate it.
Turn the whole house into a cat playground, with wooden platforms everywhere so he could hop around every corner!
Once they exchanged WeChat, Sang Zhao couldn’t take it anymore. He dragged Tang Yu and Xia Moye away, leaving the scene to the Yao Bureau and the beaver.
Because based on his logic, as soon as they left, the parents were definitely going to dive into the sea to retrieve the kid…
Given all this, outside was way too dangerous. He’d rather go back to work.
This weekend trip only convinced him further:
He preferred lying in the AC room scrolling on his phone, eating new flavors of freeze-dried snacks.
Outside was too dangerous. Too many loopholes. Too much whack-a-mole covering things up.
Definitely exhausting.
By Sunday night, the summer camp ended.
Xia Moye hugged his friends one by one, said goodbye to teachers and foreign instructors, waving in all the languages he learned, his face wet from rubbing it everywhere.
Sang Zhao shrugged, impressed. “He actually learned something. Rare!”
A language camp that even taught a dog a little foreign language, how could that not count as a huge success?
They went back to the suite to pack.
Tang Yu gave the white wiggle-car to Xia Moye. The kid jumped into his arms and planted a big wet kiss on his cheek.
“Mua!”
Tang Yu laughed and patted his cheek.
Sang Zhao stood behind them with a weird expression. Xia Moye understood instantly, he darted back out of Tang Yu’s arms, tugged Sang Zhao’s clothes, made him crouch, and planted a kiss on him too.
“Bo~!”
Then he whispered in Sang Zhao’s ear: “Cat is the best of the best.”
Yeye remembered everything, every little thing the cat did for him, he treasured like pearls.
Before leaving, the three of them tidied up the suite and put the trash out.
Sang Zhao took Xia Moye downstairs first, saying he wanted one last convenience-store sausage. Tang Yu stayed behind to check out.
He checked the living room, the guest room, then the master bedroom, just to make sure nothing was left behind.
On the master bed he saw a throw pillow. He picked it up, patted it twice, intending to toss it onto the sofa.
But when he lifted and shook it, he saw something.
A single, short, fine golden-orange hair lying starkly against the black-and-white pillow.
He paused, picked it up, examined it.
It wasn’t Sang Zhao’s hair, his wasn’t this soft or this short.
This one was especially fine and soft. Just one strand, too short to tell whether it was fabric fiber or something else, but it was delicate, light, definitely not artificial thread.
Based on his years of experience visiting cat cafés, Tang Yu judged:
This was cat fur.
Not dog fur, dog fur was coarser. This was soft. Cat-soft.
Tang Yu stood there, deep in thought.
…Hmm?
Did a cat get in?
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